Our new Indie Games subforum is now open for business in G&T. Go and check it out, you might land a code for a free game. If you're developing an indie game and want to post about it, follow these directions. If you don't, he'll break your legs! Hahaha! Seriously though.

Our rules have been updated and given their own forum. Go and look at them! They are nice, and there may be new ones that you didn't know about! Hooray for rules! Hooray for The System! Hooray for Conforming!

For a game so very, very large, it delivers everything in an easy to understand package no matter what route you take to playing it. The core Civilization experience is still there, but it's like an efficiency expert came in and streamlined everything that had gotten clunky with the series. It's a "friendly" strategy game.

My favorite Civilization to date. Hex tiles and no stacking makes combat fun and more tactical. The new systems work incredibly well without altering what makes the game Civilization. Civ V is an excellent game.

Improvements to the user interface and AI at all levels result in it being more approachable for newcomers without losing any of the strategic depth that long-time fans crave. It vastly improves combat, making the micro-level gameplay both more complex and entertaining. It trims all the fat, leaving only decision-making, strategic planning, and the sheer joy of crushing your enemies. Civ V is the pinnacle of the franchise to date.

Civilization V is a brilliant expression of the turn-based strategy game by the undisputed masters of the form. It's a great entry point for newcomers, and veterans will delight in all the wrinkles and refinements.

In a sea of shooters with pounding soundtracks and frenetic gameplay, Civilization V is one of the few games to challenge players' minds - to have them sit back and analyze situations methodically. If Halo: Reach is heaven on earth for twitch-gamers everywhere, then Civilization V is the thinking man's paradise.

Sid Meier's Civilization V (also known as Civilization 5) is a turn-based strategy computer game developed by Firaxis and released on Microsoft Windows in September 2010. It is the latest game in the Civilization series.

In Civilization V, the player leads a civilization from prehistoric times into the future on a randomly-generated map, achieving one of a number of different victory conditions through research, diplomacy, expansion, economic development, government and military conquest. The game is based on an entirely new game engine with hexagonal tiles instead of the square tiles of earlier games in the series. Many elements from Civilization IV and its expansion packs have been removed or changed, such as religion and espionage. The combat system has been overhauled, removing stacking of military units and enabling cities to defend themselves by firing directly on nearby enemies. In addition, the maps contain computer-controlled city-states as non-player characters that are available for trade, diplomacy and conquest. A civilization's borders also expand more realistically, favoring more productive terrain, and the concept of roads has changed.

The game features community, modding and multiplayer elements.

This is a STEAM POWERED game, no matter where you buy it it will have to be linked to your Steam account.

People emigrate from unhappy empires to happy ones and to city-states as well.

* The more happy empire is, the more emigrants it receives.
* Maximum number of citizens that can leave a country per turn equals to 50% of unhappiness. on average it is 25%.
* People can not to emigrate to a country which is currently at war with their homeland.
* Notification icon appears signalizing about emigration (or immigration) has happened. Clicking icon shows a subject city.

Pretty neat mod concept.

I'd note it is ridiculously easy to make very polished-looking mods with the provided mod tools, and it all uses standard lua scripting. Firaxis did a very good job on the modding side of things for this game.

So, with the hype this game was getting around release, I suddenly found myself interested in the Civilization series. I've never played one before but starting a civilization from scratch, building Wonders, keeping citizens happy, all this does sound really rad. However, my dilemma is this: where do I start? Civ 5 seemed perfect when it came out, but now that the euphoria around the release has settled, it seems less so.

Mainly, what attracts me most is the idea of roleplaying as a peaceful, utopian civilization or at least striving towards it. I'm sure I'd be tempted to play as a world-conquering British empire kind of thing occasionally, but let's say that's not where my primary interests lie. Now, most people are saying that doing the former is significantly harder in Civ 5 than in previous games. Moreover, the AI now plays to win, rather than simply exist. As in, it's designed as a board game, which seems like the kind of fundamental design choice that feeds into the latter kind of play.

Speaking of the AI, it apparently sucks ass. But people on other forums are saying that Civ 4's AI was even worse on day one and that traditionally, Firaxis makes significant improvements to its AI through patches and that every Civ sees the kind of backlash on release that Civ 5 is seeing. How many patches and how much time did Civ 4 take to get the point where it was recognized as the classic it's considered today? Should I wait for the same for Civ 5?

Should I even get Civ 5? I read a post here that said that Civ 4 was the absolute peak of the previous generation of Civ and that Civ 5 is taking the franchise in a new direction because 4 simply can't be topped. And then Alec Meer said

Yeah, this’ll ultimately be remembered as one of the filler tracks on Civ’s best-of LP, one of the ones you never quite felt had real heart, real soul – but it’s a tune I’m more than happy to hum.

So, what, buy Civ 4 now and wait two years to see what the ultimate verdict on Civ 5 is? I know people don't consider Civ 3 to be any good but even that has a 90 on metacritic. Maybe Civ 5 will be considered the same way down the line?

Right now, I'm thinking I should play Civ 4 'cause it's one of those significant great games that are part of the canon and all that jazz. Or is it the kind of situation where hexes are definitively superior to squares and Civ 5 is just flat-out better, so I shouldn't be bothered with Civ 4 now that 5 is out.

Plus, I read that Civ 5 runs like shit even on the most kick-ass computers. More incentive to wait. Anyhoo, these are just basic impressions that I've picked up from reading internet talk. You, Civ veteran, tell me what to do. Lay my doubts to rest.

The problem is that Civ 5 seems to be pretty divisive. I like it, but feel like there are some bad oversights that show at best poor judgement in the game design stage, and at worst 2K whipping Firaxis for a tight release schedule and/or DLC. Some just hate it, and that is fine (and I won't just ascribe it to being a stick in the mud).

Ultimately, Civ 4 is very cheap nowadays and it is a great game. Civ 5 is also a great game, and it's hard to go back after some of the improvements Civ 5 made. I'd personally suggest grabbing Civ 4 and waiting for Civ 5 to get patched/get an expansion, but it's an extremely subjective thing.

In my two games I haven't really encountered much bugginess. I think the default AI/city governor does not prioritize hammers nearly enough in a game without really enough of them to begin with, but that might be me playing on epic speed habitually?

Just a tip for Civ 5 players - after upgrading my memory from 2GB to the recommended 4GB, the game has become a lot more playable - before, the DX11 version barely ran. I'd assumed it was my graphics card, but after installing the extra 2GB it runs as smoothly as the DX9 version.

It chugs a little in the end game on larger maps, and I'm planning to add another 2GB, see how it affects the end game.

does the city actually have any health left? . any ranged units attacking a city with no health are wasting their time.

Oooooh. Yeah, these were all ranged.

This is probably a bug, because the AI seems unable to do it, but if you order your ranged units to move onto the enemy city, they'll attack it like they were a melee unit and possibly take it.

I've never had a ranged unit take a city before, believe me I've tried. Anytime you use the move command with a ranged unit against a city it will just attack. If your 2 tiles away it will move the 1 and attack if it can.

Yeah, the automatic zooming on random stuff gets on my nerves at times, especially when I have stuff I want to do with one unit but it then zooms to something random on the other side of the continent.

It would be nice if one of the alerts down the side was simply "Unit(s) need orders" and we could click that instead of being taken on a roller-coaster ride around the empire.

I don't understand how that would help. isn't it the same thing except you added an (s) in there.

I've also looked into the config files there is no auto-pan option in config.ini or userconfig.ini.

The before mentioned mod works out nicely. since the "unit need orders" message is still in place you can't accidentally not move a unit. and you can hit the wait key to cycle the next unit. It would be nice if there were a hot key for the military quick list.

So, with the hype this game was getting around release, I suddenly found myself interested in the Civilization series. I've never played one before but starting a civilization from scratch, building Wonders, keeping citizens happy, all this does sound really rad. However, my dilemma is this: where do I start? Civ 5 seemed perfect when it came out, but now that the euphoria around the release has settled, it seems less so.

Mainly, what attracts me most is the idea of roleplaying as a peaceful, utopian civilization or at least striving towards it. I'm sure I'd be tempted to play as a world-conquering British empire kind of thing occasionally, but let's say that's not where my primary interests lie. Now, most people are saying that doing the former is significantly harder in Civ 5 than in previous games. Moreover, the AI now plays to win, rather than simply exist. As in, it's designed as a board game, which seems like the kind of fundamental design choice that feeds into the latter kind of play.

Speaking of the AI, it apparently sucks ass. But people on other forums are saying that Civ 4's AI was even worse on day one and that traditionally, Firaxis makes significant improvements to its AI through patches and that every Civ sees the kind of backlash on release that Civ 5 is seeing. How many patches and how much time did Civ 4 take to get the point where it was recognized as the classic it's considered today? Should I wait for the same for Civ 5?

Should I even get Civ 5? I read a post here that said that Civ 4 was the absolute peak of the previous generation of Civ and that Civ 5 is taking the franchise in a new direction because 4 simply can't be topped. And then Alec Meer said

Yeah, this’ll ultimately be remembered as one of the filler tracks on Civ’s best-of LP, one of the ones you never quite felt had real heart, real soul – but it’s a tune I’m more than happy to hum.

So, what, buy Civ 4 now and wait two years to see what the ultimate verdict on Civ 5 is? I know people don't consider Civ 3 to be any good but even that has a 90 on metacritic. Maybe Civ 5 will be considered the same way down the line?

Right now, I'm thinking I should play Civ 4 'cause it's one of those significant great games that are part of the canon and all that jazz. Or is it the kind of situation where hexes are definitively superior to squares and Civ 5 is just flat-out better, so I shouldn't be bothered with Civ 4 now that 5 is out.

Plus, I read that Civ 5 runs like shit even on the most kick-ass computers. More incentive to wait. Anyhoo, these are just basic impressions that I've picked up from reading internet talk. You, Civ veteran, tell me what to do. Lay my doubts to rest.

Bleh.

Gameplay (concepts) = excellent
Can be cheesed if you know how to = bad, but if you don't try to figure out what the cheese is/read up on it you won't know
Combat AI = bad
Diplomacy AI = bad-ish but better than people make it sound
Engine stability = very bad, I crash regularly, or display goes all wonky requiring a restart of game to fix. Top of the line 2009 computer. Game crashed my display adapter last night.

The diplomacy AI is only not incredibly bad because there are so few diplomatic options. It's a shame, though with some of the ideas floating around the modding forums, it's possible fans will be able to mod this.